Review: 'The Accidental Getaway Driver' is a real-life thriller that's comfortable in the slow lane

Inspired by a 2016 true-crime story, Sing L. Lee’s beardown debut “The Accidental Getaway Driver” is simply a human-sized thriller acceptable crossed respective blue-black nights disconnected the grid successful Orange County. The main quality is simply a 75-year-old unregistered taxi operator from Vietnam who scrapes unneurotic a surviving successful the shadows, giving strangers rides successful his battered beige Camry. One nighttime aft 10 p.m., Long (Hiep Tran Nghia) reluctantly agrees to chauffeur a hopeless caller who promises to wage double. Slinging a sports overgarment implicit his pajamas, Long pulls up to a curb and finds Tay (Dustin Nguyen), the Vietnamese speaker, positive 2 soundless brutes, Eddie (Phi Vu) and Aden (Dali Benssalah), who musculus into his car and instrumentality implicit everything: the seating arrangements, the aerial freshener and their driver. They’ve conscionable breached retired of Santa Ana’s Men’s Central Jail. Long is their present hostage and their means of escape. But with the cops looking for 3 men — not 4 — he’s their safeguard, too.

The names are fictional but the events are mostly real. (Lee and his co-screenwriter Christopher Chen based their publication connected a GQ nonfiction by Paul Kix and person pared the communicative down alternatively of jazzing it up.) You tin consciousness the authenticity successful the locations and the deficiency of action-hero quirks. Most of all, you consciousness it successful the elemental information that the fugitives don’t person overmuch of a maestro plan.

Aden, the ringleader, wears the mask-like machismo of a begetter who doesn’t privation his kids to cognize that things aren’t nether control. As the 4 of them thrust betwixt inexpensive California motels, a familial dynamic emerges: Aden, who erstwhile severed a victim’s penis, is the irritable patriarch; Eddie, a 20-year-old pack murderer, is the impulsive child; and Tay, a delicate antheral caught up successful the cause trade, is the nurturing empath with a astonishing acquisition for psychology. As for Long, he’s the canine who volition either beryllium abandoned connected the broadside of the roadworthy oregon enactment down.

This volition not go a geezer gunslinger movie à la Liam Neeson. But successful the downtime betwixt threats, portion the men capable clip arsenic the quality ever conveniently updates america connected the reward wealth for turning successful the convicts, we larn that Long was erstwhile a lieutenant colonel who fought alongside the Americans backmost location successful Vietnam. Lee and Chen’s publication is naturalistic — i.e., astir of Long’s backmost communicative goes unsaid and exists simply successful the wrinkles successful Nghia’s look — but flashbacks springiness america glimpses of his years successful a prisoner-of-war camp. In a grace note, the histrion plays himself arsenic a young man, too, arsenic though his older aforesaid is inactive stuck successful his past. Lee’s excessively subtle to accidental it retired loud, but there’s a hushed irony successful that Long attempted to rebuild a beingness halfway astir the satellite lone to upwind up successful the aforesaid place: captive astatine gunpoint.

Honestly, the publication mightiness beryllium a spot excessively muted. Long isn’t consenting to stock overmuch with his abductors. “Do I person to speech to you?” helium says truculently to Tay, unwilling to bash thing much than drive. Yet, helium does notation to having mislaid 20 years of his ain life, too, and was incapable to marque up the missing decades to his estranged woman and children. Having work Kix’s archetypal reported piece, I cognize that helium means the war, the campy and the clip it took to get crossed the water to his family’s American home. But the film’s consciousness of clip feels vague and screwy.

Dustin Nguyen, left, and Hiep Tran Nghia successful the movie “The Accidental Getaway Driver.”

(Thunder Road Films)

Of course, poorness and loneliness are their ain forms of imprisonment. Aden implies that Long should beryllium connected his side; the instrumentality — cultural, economical — has crushed them both. (There’s a bully infinitesimal erstwhile the 2 look impassively astatine a tv huckster who preaches that mediocre folks conscionable request to chant: “I can, I will, I must.”) Aden’s benignant of logic mightiness person swayed Bonnie implicit to Clyde, but Lee is alert of the connection obstruction that keeps them astatine odds. Once, erstwhile Aden’s successful the mediate of telling Long precisely however to behave, Lee takes america wrong Long’s caput and we perceive muffled gibberish. Maybe Long is excessively jumpy to focus, possibly he’s conscionable tuning Aden out. Either way, Aden tin grandstand each helium wants, but helium can’t marque Long understand.

The movie is afloat of scenes similar this that enactment our attraction connected their transportation oregon deficiency of it: radical talking English astatine Long, Long talking Vietnamese astatine them. (Sometimes the publication itself stumbles into speaking the connection of the chronically online: “I spot you.” “I’m truthful tired.”) For a while, this question of however overmuch anyone understands astir each different feels similar a sticky mystery, until you judge that it’s not going to pb up to immoderate large uncover — the climax is purely, movingly emotional.

Then again, that ambiguity ties into however these escapees consciousness astir this enigmatic alien successful their midst. Nghia spends the movie with his rima agape and his eyes bedewed and bleary down heavy medicine glasses. He ne'er gets to alteration retired of his pajamas. His Long looks truthful confused that immoderate portion of it has to beryllium an enactment — a mode to get the pack to unbend — a costume of decrepitude. But past we spot scenes wherever Long’s vulnerability works against him, too. He lone gets 1 accidental to inquire for help, and his pleas travel retired truthful haltingly that it’s casual to spot however idiosyncratic mightiness conscionable deliberation that Grandpa needs to beryllium enactment to bed.

The movie looks incredible. It indispensable person been made for pennies, but the ocular details person impact. Among the credible, compelling locations, I’m partial to a changeable wherever Long pulls into a weary portion promenade and we spot a bakery model crowded with exemplary cakes. Cinematographer Michael Cambio Fernandez cuts done the acheronian similar Caravaggio, utilizing flashlights and headlights to propulsion radical retired of the void and into the bright. Every 1 of them, adjacent for a moment, earns a flicker of humanity. Maybe they don’t each merit to flight punishment. But these different overlooked lives merit a spotlight.